This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Chapter 3: Strings and Regular Expressions

3.0. Introduction

It would be very rare to create an entire application without using a single
string. Strings help make sense of the seemingly random jumble of binary data
that applications use to accomplish a task. They appear in all facets of application
development from the smallest system utility to large enterprise services. Their
value is so apparent that more and more connected systems are leaning toward
string data within their communication protocols by utilizing the Extensible
Markup Language (XML) rather than the more cumbersome traditional transmission
of large binary data. This book uses strings extensively to examine the internal
contents of variables and the results of program flow using Framework Class
Libraries (FCL) methods such as Console.WriteLine and MessageBox.Show.

In this chapter, you will learn how to take advantage of the rich support for
strings within the .NET Framework and the C# language. Coverage includes ways
to manipulate string contents, programmatically inspect strings and their character
attributes, and optimize performance when working with string objects. Furthermore,
this chapter uncovers the power of regular expressions and how they allow you
to effectively parse and manipulate string data. After reading this chapter,
you will be able to use regular expressions in a variety of different situations
where their value is apparent.